The Next Right - will it rise to the occasion?
May 10th, 2008 by Republican By DefaultIs this what conservatives have needed? A few techno-conservatives have banded together to create a new site called ‘The NextRight‘ that they hope will shift the center of gravity on the Internet back toward the political right (h/t NewsBusters.Org). Here’s what they say about what they’re planning:
The Next Right is the place for wired activists to build a new Republican Party and conservative movement. As a community-driven grassroots action website for the right, we’ll feature in-depth political analysis, on-the-ground reports, and strategic discussion and debate.
Sounds cool to me. It sounds like they’re on the right track (pardon the pun), but many questions remain.
Will they be able to provide the tools to make it happen? Will anyone want to use the tools? Will anyone (such as the McCain campaign) try to exploit it for votes? Will real conservatives find a home there or is it just another attempt by RINO’s to sport their fake conservative credentials?
Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic lists the recent background of the founders:
Jon Henke, a former new media coordinator for George Allen’s Senate campaign, Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign and the new media adviser to Senate Republicans;
Patrick Ruffini, the RNC’s eCampaign director in 2006, a consultant for Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign, and a consultant in private practice;
And Soren Dayton, a longtime Republican activist with particular roots in the College and Young Republican worlds. Until he decided to freelance on his own blog, he worked the political desk for John McCain’s presidential campaign. He has also consulted for international democracy movements.
Henke seems to be solidly conservative, but I have some questions about the background of the other two. I realize that being a paid consultant or working on a campaign doesn’t necessarily mean that someone agrees completely with their candidate, but being on staff forGiuliani or McCain doesn’t speak to me of conservative cred. I’ll post more on their background and associations as I find it, if it’s worth mentioning.
Patrick Ruffini has blogged about the new site on his blog. Here’s an excerpt:
If you’re looking for pure-play opinion and link bait on sundry topics from Ann Coulter to Jimmy Carter/Hamas, you won’t find it here. What you will find is in-depth (often unabashedly technical) writing about the election, the polls, the strategy, and the issues. Our analysis will track truth and stay true to the numbers. But it will self-consciously serve a greater purpose — educating YOU to be your own political strategist and start doing something — whether that’s blogging about your local Congressional race or Democratic corruption in your state, organizing fundraising drives, and maybe even managing races or running for office yourself. Only a revival of civic engagement at the grassroots level will create a conservative future we want: one that is pork-free and robust in the defense of our country and its values. We can’t call a switchboard and wait for Washington to fix the mess. We have to do it ourselves, from the ground up, in every state.
At this point I’m going to weigh in as skeptical. I’ve heard this before and it ends up being nothing but a campaign speech designed to draw conservatives into voting for a moderate Republican who ends up selling them out once in office.
They bring up some good points. I think this idea has the potential to build momentum IF AND ONLY IF it is truly conservative and not tainted by moderates who only claim to be conservative in an effort to win votes. There’s a problem developing in politics that people are claiming the conservative mantle in the same way they’ve been claiming the Reagan mantle. It’s a political buzzword that succeeded in the past so they want to use it to their own benefit.
The result of this exploitation of the term ‘conservative’ is that true conservatives are getting skeptical. I know because I’m one of them. I don’t like to speak for others but I will say that other conservatives have expressed the same reservations that I have.
Unfortunately we’re stuck with the old Republican machine that has the mistaken concept that in order to get elected you can’t be conservative. It’s complete hogwash when it’s applied to the grassroots of the party, but when you look at the machine the idea begins to show some (unfortunate) validity. If you’re a conservative it’s almost impossible to get real support for the Republican leadership. Living in Washington state I can say that is consistently true, and I can see evidence of it in other states and on the national level.
Contributing to the skepticism is that real conservatives are being let down by the leaders they elected to further their values in the political arena. Take G. W. Bush for instance. Carl Rove seems to be the one who built Bush up as a conservative and advised him to act like one when it was important for the next election. Then, at the beginning of Bush’s second term, Rove finally came out and said that the Right won’t be getting much from the Bush administration anymore. I’m looking for the quote (it was in a speech at a PAC, I believe) and I’ll post it when I find it.
Being true to form, Bush’s second term has been a huge disappointment to the people who got him elected. He nominated several (under-qualified) cronies to key positions (one was turned around by conservatives screaming at the top of their lungs), failed to move on border security, failed to fix Social Security, pandered to the left on numerous issues and supported candidates (such as McCain) who don’t represent the conservative principles that he was elected on.
Republicans today are not the same as the Republicans of old. They still hold to the same core values, but they’re more likely to put conservative principles ahead of the party, where the old guard is more likely to put the party ahead of principles. This is a point that is not lost to conservative voters. We see it clearly.
The most frustrating part is that when we speak up about the problem the old guard and their sycophants are quick to label us and marginalize us. This frustrates those who speak up and those who look on as they see that efforts to change things are met with politics as usual.
For now I’ll remain “Republican By Default”. If this problem continues that could change to “Formerly Republican”. It will be interesting to see if TheNextRight.com will do anything to change the status quo. My hopes aren’t high, but I’m willing to wait and see.
Update: TheNextRight.com set to launch May 27, 2008. You can find their RSS feed at:
May 11th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I think you need to define conservatism. In your opinion, what does it mean to be a conservative, and what positions could one take that would disqualify them? Can you be a conservative and an agnostic/atheist? Does having no problem with embryonic stem cell research mean your not a conservative? Different people define conservatism very differently. My fear is that “conservatives” will whittle down what it means to be a conservative to such a degree that they will inadvertently render themselves a small and inconsequential group.